at all,
though something like a man! not having any father and mother--"

"You mean," suggested Sime, "a spirit?"

The fortune-teller shook his head.

"They tell me, sir, not a spirit--a man, but not as other men; a very,
very bad man; one that the great king, long, long ago, the king you
call Wise ----"

"Solomon?" suggested Cairn.

"Yes, yes, Suleyman!--one that he, when he banish all the tribe of the
demons from earth--one that he not found."

"One he overlooked?" jerked Sime.

"Yes, yes, overlook! A very evil man, my gentlemen. They tell me he
has come to Egypt. He come not from the sea, but across the great
desert--"

"The Libyan Desert?" suggested Sime.

The man shook, his head, seeking for words.

"The Arabian Desert?"

"No, no! Away beyond, far up in Africa"--he waved his long arms
dramatically--"far, far up beyond the Sudan."

"The Sahara Desert?" proposed Sime.

"Yes, yes! it is Sahara Desert!--come across the Sahara Desert, and is
come to Khartum."

"How did he get there?" asked Cairn.

The Indian shrugged his shoulders.

"I cannot say, but next he come to Wady Halfa, then he is in Assouan,
and from Assouan he come down to Luxor! Yesterday an Egyptian friend
told me _Khamsin_ is in the Fayum. Therefore _he_ is there--the man of
evil--for he bring the hot wind with him."

The Indian was growing impressive, and two American tourists stopped
to listen to his words.

"To-night--to-morrow,"--he spoke now almost in a whisper, glancing
about him as if apprehensive of being overheard--"he may be here, in
Cairo, bringing with him the scorching breath of the desert--the
scorpion wind!"

He stood up, casting off the mystery with which he had invested his
story, and smiling insinuatingly. His work was done; his fee was due.
Sime rewarded him with five piastres, and he departed, bowing.

"You know, Sime--" Cairn began to speak, staring absently the while
after the fortune-teller, as he descended the carpeted steps and
rejoined the throng on the sidewalk below--"you know, if a
man--anyone, could take advantage of such a wave of thought as this
which is now sweeping through Egypt--if he could cause it to
concentrate upon him, as it were, don't you think that it would
enable him to transcend the normal, to do phenomenal things?"

"By what process should you propose to make yourself such a focus?"

"I was speaking impersonally, Sime. It might be possible--"

"It might be possible to dress for d